Category: BEST data

In our continuing adventure comparing the last data from Berkley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST) today we are looking at Washington State.

NOAA/NCDC data suggests the last 5 years have cooled off considerably in Washington State. But even more interesting is that the 10 year period from the late 1800s to around 1907 was in fact warmer than the last 5 years.

Here is the NOAA Washington Data. The boxes are 5 year averages. Blue is below the 1951-80 average. Red text indicates warmer. As you can, the average for the last 5 years is .16C while the late 1800s early 1900s have anomalies of .44C and .47C. It ruins the AGW narrative for it to be so warm so far in the past.

Here is the same period using the BEST data. As you can see the same 1800s/1900s period is now -.2C and -.19C below the 51-80 average and much colder than the recent period.

How did they do that? BEST adjusted way down all the data before 1926 or so thereby artificially cooling the warm past. The following graph is the BEST anomaly minus the NOAA anomaly. They didn’t do much to the post 1930 data. Clearly they did not want anyone thinking it could be warm in the past.

I started comparing the July 29, 2012 BEST release to NOAA’s data here with Alabama.

Unlike Alabama which according to NOAA has cooled since 1895, North Dakota is one of the fastest warming states according to NOAA.

I assume BEST was happy with a fast warming state so they just warmed all the data. Every 5 year period (except for 3 and 1 no change) were warmed a small amount.

I cannot help but consluding that BEST had a goal in mind , or more likely their algorithm was designed to make all trends rise from past to present. If the real trend wouldn’t cooperate (like Alabama) they cooled the past and warmed the present. If the real trend was in the right direction, they just pretended to adjust the data.

I thought I would compare TAVG data from the new BEST release to the NOAA data for the state of Alabama.

I got the BEST data here. I got the NOAA data here. The BEST anomalies are as of 1951 to 1980. So I calculated the NOAA anomalies for Alabama using the same time frame. Then I convert NOAA anomalies from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

So, for example, 1950 and 2010 (temperatures are anomalies from the 1951-1980 average):

Year

Month

NOAA_F

NOAA_C

BEST_C

BEST minus NOAA

661

1950.00

1.00

16.00

8.89

6.83

-2.06

665

1950.00

2.00

7.00

3.89

2.70

-1.19

666

1950.00

3.00

-1.30

-0.72

-1.05

-0.33

667

1950.00

4.00

-3.50

-1.94

-1.77

0.17

668

1950.00

5.00

3.80

2.11

1.51

-0.60

669

1950.00

6.00

1.30

0.72

0.39

-0.34

670

1950.00

7.00

-1.50

-0.83

-1.10

-0.27

671

1950.00

8.00

-1.40

-0.78

-0.99

-0.21

672

1950.00

9.00

-1.60

-0.89

-0.81

0.07

662

1950.00

10.00

3.60

2.00

1.33

-0.67

663

1950.00

11.00

-3.70

-2.06

-2.32

-0.27

664

1950.00

12.00

-4.40

-2.44

-2.48

-0.03

1381

2010.00

1.00

-4.50

-2.50

-2.54

-0.04

1385

2010.00

2.00

-7.30

-4.06

-4.13

-0.08

1386

2010.00

3.00

-3.60

-2.00

-1.59

0.41

1387

2010.00

4.00

0.70

0.39

1.28

0.89

1388

2010.00

5.00

2.80

1.56

1.77

0.22

1389

2010.00

6.00

3.80

2.11

2.52

0.41

1390

2010.00

7.00

3.00

1.67

1.82

0.15

1391

2010.00

8.00

4.10

2.28

2.51

0.23

1392

2010.00

9.00

2.80

1.56

2.15

0.59

1382

2010.00

10.00

1.30

0.72

0.65

-0.07

1383

2010.00

11.00

2.30

1.28

1.44

0.16

1384

2010.00

12.00

-6.40

-3.56

-2.98

0.58

Hmmm. They don’t look too similar. So I double checked. 16 for Jan 1950? Yes, Jan 1950 was the warmest January in Alabama history according to the NOAA. It averaged 60F, which is 16F above the 1951-1980 average.

So, lets graph BEST minus NOAA_C. Whaaatttt! No wonder BEST can claim warming occurred after 1960.

They cooled all the pre-1960 data and warmed all the post-1960 data (compared to NOAA)!!

“It is shown that the SE United States is one of few regions on this planet that shows a cooling trend over the twentieth century (Trenberth et al. 2007). Portmann et al. (2009) find that this cooling trend is strongest in the late spring–early summer period.”

“Research suggests that the temperature of the southeastern United States has been decreasing over the past 100 years. The Southeast is distinct from other regions of the United States that do show distinct warming. Cooling in the Southeast, however, is not necessarily due to recent temperature trends. Rather, the large scale cooling is readily apparent when looking at the extended period of record. Temperatures in the early 1900s were generally cool then warmed between the 1920s and the 1940s. Starting in the 1950s, temperatures decreased until the 1970s when a general increase in temperature began. Because of the warming in the 1920s through 1940s is greater than the warming after 1970, the overall trend of the century is a cooling trend.”

A continuation of the series on BEST’s TMAX data for USA states and the CONUS and the whole USA.

The most recent 5 years of BEST TMAX data is ranked #6 for the CONUS and #4 for all states. Notice the periods warmer like 51-56 and 31-36. Notice that the current period in .31C colder than the warmest period.